Students

Mona Anchan

Ed.M. Mind, Brain, and Education, Harvard University
MSc Neuroscience, Tulane University

Mona is a PhD student in the Educational Neuroscience concentration of the Educational Psychology Program at the University of Alabama. Her interests include communicating scientific research to non-scientists and working with educators to address educational and instructional needs.

Her research focuses on numerical and mathematical processing in monolingual and bilingual/multilingual populations, including differences in encoding and retrieval across age and context.

Reyhan Shorbi

MSc Physics of Complex Systems and Nonlinear Dynamics, Shahid Beheshti University
BSc Solid States Physics, Shahid Beheshti University

Reyhan is a fourth-year PhD student in Educational Neuroscience at the University of Alabam . Her research investigates how artificial intelligence affects the human brain and cognition, with a focus on critical thinking and problem-solving. She is broadly interested in neuroscience and computational neuroscience, particularly EEG and fMRI, and in applying deep learning to analyze neural data. By combining her quantitative background with neuroimaging, she aims to better understand how people think and learn in an AI-rich world.

Christofer Lumban

MSc Neuroscience and Education, Columbia University
BSc Biology Education, Corban University

Christofer Tobing is a second-year PhD student in Educational Psychology with a concentration in Educational Neuroscience at the University of Alabama and a member of the Embodied Learning Design and Educational Neuroscience (ELDEN) Lab, led by Dr. Firat Soylu. Before pursuing graduate training in neuroscience, Christofer spent approximately eight years working in education field, both in formal schools and EdTech companies in Indonesia. His experience working directly with students and teachers continues to shape his approach to research, motivating him to investigate learning and cognitive processes from both educational and neuroscientific perspectives. As an aspiring educational neuroscientist, Christofer hopes to contribute bridging educational practice and neuroscience by developing research that addresses meaningful questions.

Dr. Roya Salehzadeh

Roya completed her PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 2023. Her dissertation research involved human safety and trust in Human-robot interaction (HRI), she collaborated with the ELDEN Lab on machine learning methods in analysing EEG data. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas State University.

Dr. Brian Rivera

Brian was a member of ELDEN Lab between 2016 and 2021 and completed his PhD in Educational Psychology with a Concentration in Educational Neuroscience in 2021. His dissertation research involved EEG, online behavioral studies of fraction verification, and fMRI research on arithmetic verification. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Olaf College.

Dr. Wesley Webber

Wes was a member of ELDEN Lab between 2017 and 2020 and completed his PhD in Counselor Education in 2020. His dissertation examined implicit bias in mental health professionals using EEG. He is currently an Assistant Professor at East Carolina University.